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Monday, February 08, 2010
Lawyer: Woman Abused
By Rozanna M. Martinez
Journal Staff Writer
Ellen Snyder's co-worker gave her a gun to protect her from her husband after she showed up to work with bruises.
That gun would later be used to fatally shoot her then-husband Michael Snyder, 43, eight times at the home the Snyders shared.
Eight years later, police found Michael Snyder's remains on Thursday at the bottom of a 6- to 8-foot-deep hole on what used to be the master mechanic's property in North Albuquerque Acres.
Ellen Snyder, 50, turned herself in to police on Friday. She is charged with an open count of murder.
Authorities are still trying to piece together her precise motive for the alleged killing, Police Chief Ray Schultz told the Journal on Friday. Schultz said there have been many rumors authorities are looking into regarding the specifics of the case, including substantial sums of money Michael Snyder had and a prenuptial agreement.
But in an interview with KOAT-TV that aired Sunday night, Snyder's longtime friend and attorney Penni Adrian said it was years of emotional and physical abuse, not greed, that drove her client to kill her husband of nine years.
"Her biggest concern was that people thought that she had raked in the dough and that she might have killed Mike in order to get money," Adrian said. "And that didn't have anything to do with it at all."
Adrian did not return a phone call from the Journal seeking comment.
The Snyders met at work when Ellen was a service manager and Michael was a master mechanic. They fell in love and married after Michael began leaving notes and flowers on Ellen's car windshield, Adrian told the TV station.
Adrian said the Snyders did not have a prenuptial agreement. Ellen Snyder also did not collect on a $1 million life insurance policy — if one existed at all, Adrian said.
"I think it's important for people to realize that Ellen's relationship with Mike Snyder was an abusive relationship," Adrian told KOAT.
Frequent abuse?
Michael Snyder abused Ellen emotionally and physically on a regular basis, the woman's lawyer told KOAT. Adrian did not elaborate on the details of the alleged abuse.
Michael Snyder's temper grew worse after he found out he had multiple sclerosis in 2001, Adrian said.
"Every night 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, Mike would come get Ellen out of bed, take her into another part of the house, and begin arguing with her about something," Adrian told KOAT.
Michael Snyder also allegedly begin having an affair with another man after he left his job and began taking automotive classes in Phoenix.
"We only know of one, but when he was going to Phoenix, he was seeing a man named Dave," Adrian said during the TV interview.
Adrian claims "Dave" was calling and leaving sexual messages on Michael Snyder's cell phone.
Ellen discovered the messages, and that created more friction between the Snyders.
One day, Ellen showed up to work with bruises on her shoulder, and a co-worker became concerned, Adrian said.
The co-worker told police he lent Ellen Snyder a loaded .32-caliber semi-automatic pistol. Snyder said she feared for her safety and that of the couple's then 6-year-old daughter and her 17-year-old son, Michael Sheffield.
She returned the gun a few months later without the bullets and explained to her co-worker that another man, whom she would later marry, had taken her out and shown her how to use the weapon, according to the arrest warrant affidavit.
But police say Ellen Snyder unloaded the gun on Michael Snyder in the early morning hours of Jan. 11, 2002.
'I have a gun'
Michael Snyder woke Ellen about 3 a.m. that morning and started fighting with her. Ellen warned him that she had a weapon.
"She kept saying, 'Get away from me because I have a gun, I have a gun,' " Adrian told KOAT. "And he just laughed at her and said, 'You don't have the guts to use it.' I don't think she took that as a dare, I think that just telling him she had a gun didn't stop him."
Ellen then fired the gun eight times, killing Michael Snyder.
"Ellen fell into a cycle of abuse that creates a sense of failure in a woman and the inability to escape the situation," Adrian said. "You just don't see a way out."
Sheffield heard the gunshots and called 911 but hung up after his mother told him everything was OK. He then discovered his mother had shot and killed his stepfather, and the two panicked, according to the affidavit.
Sheffield wrapped his stepfather in plastic garbage bags and put him in the garage. Two days later, Ellen Snyder hired a backhoe to dig a hole in the yard, and Michael Snyder was later buried.
Sheffield has not been charged because he has cooperated with the investigation and was a juvenile at the time of the incident.
Michael Snyder's mother reported her son missing in May 2002. Ellen Snyder filed for divorce in April that year. She has since remarried.
Ellen Snyder called authorities in October 2003 to say that she had spoken with Michael Snyder and that he was fine. She told detectives that her former husband "had looked at land in places like St. Croix, Grand Cayman Island and the U.S. Virgin Islands," according to the affidavit.
A son's turmoil
Sheffield confided in some friends about what happened to his stepfather.
One of those friends allegedly worked for Ellen Snyder and went to police after she fired him a few weeks ago, Adrian told KOAT. The TV interview did not mention where Snyder worked.
That friend later cooperated with police and told Sheffield that authorities were on to him and did not know what to do. The conversation between the two was recorded by police, who later confronted Sheffield with it, according to the affidavit.
Sheffield then confessed.
Ellen Snyder assured Sheffield that it was OK to talk to police and told him that she loved him.
"She just wanted him to tell the truth," Adrian told KOAT. "That she didn't want him to be on the hook any longer for what had happened at that house."
In addition to the open count of murder, Snyder is charged with tampering with evidence, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and conspiracy.
She is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center on a $1 million bond.
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